From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Sun Myung Moon (born January 6, 1920) is the Korean founder and leader of the worldwide Unification Church. He is also the founder of many other organizations and projects involved in political, cultural, artistic, mass-media, educational, public service, and other activities. One of the best-known of these is the conservative Washington Times newspaper.[1] He is famous for holding blessing ceremonies, often referred to as "mass weddings".

Moon has said, and it is believed by many Unification Church members, that he is the Messiah and the Second Coming of Christ and is fulfilling Jesus' unfinished mission.[2][3] He has been among the most controversial modern religious leaders, both for his religious beliefs and for his social and political activism.[4]

Early biography

He was born in 1920 in northern Korea and named Yong Myung Moon (later changed to Sun Myung Moon). His birthday was recorded as January 6 by the lunar calendar (February 25, 1920 according to the Gregorian Calendar). [1]

Life in Korea

Moon was born in Sangsa-ri (上思里, lit. "high-thought village"), Deogun-myon, Jeongju-gun, North P'yŏng'anProvince[5] (now in North Korea; Korea was then under Japanese rule). His father, Kyung-yoo Moon, was a scholar, while his mother, Kyung-gye Kim, was an active woman. They had six sons and seven daughters, of which Sun Myung Moon was the second son. When he was a child, Moon was heavily affected by his elder brother Yong-Su Moon's deep faith. The family went into bankruptcy when the elder brother of Sun Myung's grandfather, Rev. Yunguk Moon, gave most of the money belonging to the family to an independence movement from Japan. [6] In 2009, the Yonhap News Agency reported that Moon had plans to establish a sacred sanctuary at his birthplace.[7]

In the Moon family, there was a tradition in the form of a superstitous belief that held that if the second son was to receive a Western-style education, he would die early. As a result of this, Sun Myung received a Confucian-style education when he was a child and did not receive his first Western-style education until he was 14 years old.[8] The Moon family held traditional Confucianist beliefs, but converted to Christianity and joined the Presbyterian Church when he was around 10 years old. Moon taught Sunday school for the church.[9] On April 17, 1935, when he was 16 (in Korean age reckoning), Moon says he had a vision or revelation of Jesus while praying atop a small mountain. He says that Jesus asked him to complete the unfinished task of establishing God's kingdom on Earth and bring peace to the world. When he was 19 (in Korean age reckoning), Moon criticized Japanese rule over Korea and Japanese education at the graduation ceremony speech, which made himself a focus of police.[10]

Moon's high school years were spent at a boys' boarding school in Seoul, and later in Japan, where he studied electrical engineering. During this time he studied the Bible and developed his own interpretation of it. After the end of World War II he returned to Korea and began preaching his message.[9]

Moon was arrested in 1946 by North Korean officials. The church states that the charges stemmed from the jealousy and resentment of other church pastors after parishioners stopped tithing to their old churches upon joining Moon's congregation. Police beat him and nearly killed him, but a teenage disciple named Won Pil Kim nursed him back to health.

Moon was arrested again and was given a five-year sentence in 1948 to the Hŭngnamlabor camp, where prisoners were routinely worked to death on short rations. Moon credits his survival to God's protection over his life and his habit of saving half his meager water ration for washing the toxic chemicals off of his skin after long days of work, bagging and loading chemical fertilizer with his bare hands. After serving 34 months of his sentence, he was released in 1950 when UN troops advanced on the camp and the guards fled.

The beginnings of the church's official teachings, the Divine Principle, first saw written form as Wolli Wonbon in 1946. (The second, expanded version, Wolli Hesol, or Explanation of the Divine Principle, was not published until 1957; for a more complete account, see Divine Principle.) Sun Myung Moon preached in northern Korea after the end of World War II and was imprisoned by the regime in North Korea in 1946. He was released from prison, along with many other North Koreans, with the advance of American and United Nations forces during the Korean War and built his first church from mud and cardboard boxes as a refugee in Pusan.[11]

In 1954, he founded the Holy Spirit Association for the Unification of World Christianity in Seoul (also known as the Unification Church).[12] The Unification Church expanded rapidly in South Korea and by the end of 1955 had 30 church centers throughout the nation. In 1958, Moon sent missionaries to Japan, and in 1959, to the United States of America. In 1975, Moon sent out missionaries to 120 countries around the world.[11]

Marriages and children

In November 1943, Moon married Sun Kil Choi. Their son, Sung Jin Moon, was born in 1946. They divorced in 1953 soon after Moon's release from prison in North Korea. Choi and Sung Jin Moon are now both members of the Unification Church.[13] Sung Jin Moon married in 1973 and now has three children.[14]

Moon was still legally married to Choi when he began a relationship with his second (common law) wife Myung Hee Kim, who gave birth to a son named Hee Jin Moon (who was killed in a train accident). The church does not regard this as infidelity, because Sun Kil Choi had already left her husband by that time. Korean divorce law in the 1950s made legal divorce difficult and drawn out, so much so that when Myung Hee Kim became pregnant she was sent to Japan to avoid legal complications for Moon.[15]

Moon married his third wife, Hak Ja Han,[16] on April 11, 1960, soon after she turned 17 years old, in a ceremony called the Holy Marriage. Han, called Mother or True Mother by followers, and her husband together are referred to as the True Parents by members of the Unification Church.

Hak Ja Han gave birth to 14 children; her second daughter died in infancy. The family is known in the church as the True Family and the children as the True Children. Shortly after their marriage, they presided over a Blessing Ceremony for 36 couples, the first of many such ceremonies.

Nansook Hong, the former wife of Hyo Jin Moon, Sun Myung Moon's eldest son, said in her 1998 book In the Shadow of the Moons: My Life in the Reverend Sun Myung Moon's Family that both Sun Myung Moon and Hak Ja Han told her about Moon's extramarital affairs (which she said he called "providential affairs"), including one that resulted in the birth of a boy raised by a church leader, named by Sun Myung Moon's daughter Un Jin Moon on the news show 60 Minutes.[17]

Name and titles

In 1953, Moon changed his name from Mun Yong Myong to Mun Son-myong (which he spelled "Moon Sun Myung"). In a speech Moon explained that the hanja for moon (문, 文), his surname, means "word" or "literature" in Korean. The character sun (선, 鮮), composed of "fish" and "lamb" (symbols of Christianity), means "fresh." The character myung (명, 明), composed of "sun" and "moon", (which was part of his given name), means "bright." Together, sun-myung means "make clear." So the full name can be taken to mean "the word made clear." Moon concluded by saying, "My name is prophetic." [18]

In the English-speaking world, Moon is often referred to as Reverend Moon by Unification Church members, the general public, and the media. Unification Church members most often call Moon Father or True Father. He is also sometimes called Father Moon, mostly by some non-members involved with Unificationist projects. Similar titles are used for his wife: Mother, True Mother, or Mother Moon. Dr. Moon has also occasionally been used because Moon received an honorary doctorate from the Shaw Divinity School of Shaw University.

1970s

Move to the U.S.

Support for Nixon

In 1974 Moon supported PresidentRichard Nixon during the Watergate scandal.[3] Church members prayed and fasted in support of Nixon for three days in front of the United States Capitol, under the motto: "Forgive, Love and Unite." On February 1, 1974 Nixon publicly thanked them for their support and officially received Moon. This brought Moon and the Unification Church into widespread public and media attention in the United States.[21]

Public speeches

In the 1970s Moon, who had seldom spoken to the general public before, gave a series of public speeches to audiences in the United States, Japan, and South Korea. The largest were a rally in 1975 against North Korean aggression in Seoul and a speech at an event organized by the Unification Church in Washington D.C. that also featured fireworks and music. The United States Park Police estimated an attendance of 50,000 at this event.[13][22]

Support for Ronald Reagan

In 1980 Moon indirectly supported the campaign of Ronald Reagan for President. He asked the church-owned New York newspaper News World to print a headline saying "Reagan Landslide" on the day of the election, before the outcome was known.[27]

Death and "return" of second son

The second son of Hak Ja Han and Moon, Heung-Jin Moon, died on January 2, 1984, from injuries suffered in a car crash in December 1983. The "return of Heung Jin Moon" allegedly occurred via Heung Jin Moon's embodiment in the body of Cleopas Kundioni,[28] a Zimbabwean member of the Unification Church.

Kundioni's name was not known to most church members at the time, but he met with Sun Myung Moon and members of the True Family, who apparently accepted the "Black Heung Jin Nim" (also known as "Second Self Heung Jin Nim")[29] as a temporary union of the spirit of Heung Jin Moon with the mind and body of Kundioni,[30][31][32]

"Sun Myung Moon authorized the Black Heung Jin to travel the world, preaching and hearing the confessions of Unification Church members who had gone astray."[32]

Longtime president of the Korean Unification Church Young Whi Kim wrote: "They all refer to Heung Jin Nim as the new Christ. They also call him the Youth-King of Heaven. He is the King of Heaven in the spirit world. Jesus is working with him and always accompanies him. Jesus himself says that Heung Jin Nim is the new Christ. He is the center of the spirit world now. This means he is in a higher position than Jesus."[33]

In 1987 the Reverend Chung Hwan Kwak went to investigate reports that Heung Jin had taken over the body of a Zimbabwean man and was speaking through him.... The Zimbabwean...could not be the reincarnated son of Sun Myung Moon. In addition, the Unification Church rejects the theory of reincarnation. Instead, the African presented himself to the Reverend Kwak as the physical embodiment of Heung Jin's spirit.... Without even meeting the man who claimed to be possessed by the spirit of his dead child, Sun Myung Moon authorized the Black Heung Jin to travel the world, preaching and hearing the confessions of Unification Church members who had gone astray.

He went to Europe, to Korea, to Japan, everywhere administering beatings to those who had violated church teachings by using alcohol and drugs or engaging in premarital or extramarital sex.... No one outside the True Family was immune from the beatings.... The Black Heung Jin was a passing phenomenon in the Unification Church. Soon the mistresses he acquired were so numerous and the beatings he administered so severe that members began to complain.... He beat Bo Hi Pak - a man in his sixties - so badly that he was hospitalized for a week in Georgetown Hospital.[34]

Several views of the phenomenon have emerged. Members generally believed that the channeling was legitimate at first, pointing to the endorsement by Rev. Moon. Some critics do not believe there ever was genuine channeling.[35]

Some fault Rev. Moon for knowingly letting the violence continue over an extended period. Hong writes:

Sun Myung Moon seemed to take pleasure in the reports that filtered back to East Garden of the beatings being administered by the Black Heung Jin. He would laugh raucously if someone out of favor had been dealt an especially hard blow. No one outside the True Family was immune from the beatings. Leaders around the world tried to use their influence to be exempted from the Black Heung Jin's confessional. My own father appealed in vain to the Reverend Kwak to avoid having to attend such a session.[35]

Founding The Washington Times

In Washington, Moon found common ground with strongly anti-Communist leaders of the 1980s, including Reagan. Using Unification Church funds in 1982, Moon, Bo Hi Pak, and other church leaders founded The Washington Times. By 1991, Moon said he spent about $1 billion on the paper[36] (by 2002 roughly $1.7 billion),[37] which he called "the instrument in spreading the truth about God to the world".[38]

Opposition to the Soviet Union

In 1976, Moon told church members that one day he would organize "a great rally for God in the Soviet Capital." In 1980 Moon founded the anti-communist organization CAUSA International. In August 1985 the Professors World Peace Academy, an organization founded by Moon, sponsored a conference in Geneva to debate the theme "The situation in the world after the fall of the communist empire." Moon suggested the topic. In August 1987 the Unification Church student association CARP led a reported 300 demonstrators in Berlin calling for communist leaders to bring down the Berlin Wall.[13][39]

Relationship with George H. W. Bush

In the mid-1990s, former U.S. President George H. W. Bush accepted millions of dollars from Moon's Women’s Federation for World Peace to speak on Moon's behalf around the world, a fact[11] that Moon and the Unification Church have widely publicised, particularly in efforts to improve the image of the Unification Church outside the US. While discussing one of Bush's trips (a 1995 tour of Japan), Bo Hi Pak said:

"Then George and Barbara Bush went to Fukuoka, the capital of Kyushu. The people of Kyushu were flabbergasted at Father and Mother's power to tell a U.S. president what to do and plan his schedule. Incredible. This completely changed the attitude of the Japanese government and media toward the Unification community."[41]

Daughter-in-law's book questions role as "True Parent"

When the Moons' eldest son Hyo Jin Moon was 19 years old, Sun Myung Moon picked a 15-year-old wife for him, Nansook Hong, with whom he had five children.[42] In 1998 Hong published a book about her experiences in the Moon family, In the Shadow of the Moons: My Life in the Reverend Sun Myung Moon's Family (ISBN 0-316-34816-3), which the New Yorker Magazine called Moon's "most damaging scandal".[2] The "tell-all memoir"[2] openly challenges Moon and his wife's role in church teachings as "True Parents". According to Hong, and later confirmed by his public confessions and his own statements in a court deposition on November 15, 1996,[43] Hyo Jin Moon had repeated problems with substance abuse, pornography, infidelity, violence and run-ins with the law. A few years later, Hong left the Moon estate with her children, subsequently publishing the book and appearing in several interviews, including 60 Minutes.[44] She told TIME Magazine: "Rev. Moon has been proclaiming that he has established his ideal family, and fulfilled his mission, and when I pinpointed that his family is just as dysfunctional as any other family - or more than most - then I think his theology falls apart."[45] For some Unification Church members, this book was a revealing portrait of the way Sun Myung Moon and his wife had raised their children, and caused a great deal of soul-searching.[46]

Son's death

On October 27, 1999 the Moons' sixth son, Young Jin, fell to his death from the 17th floor of a Reno, Nevada hotel. Police reports and the coroner officially recorded the death as a suicide. Moon has said that he does not believe it was suicide.[47][48]

Schengen ban

Between 2002 and 2006, Moon and his wife were banned from entry into Germany and the other 14 Schengen treaty countries. The Netherlands and a few other Schengen states let Moon and his wife enter their countries in 2005.[56]

sent to Earth . . . to save the world's six billion people.... Emperors, kings and presidents . . . have declared to all Heaven and Earth that Reverend Sun Myung Moon is none other than humanity's Savior, Messiah, Returning Lord and True Parent.[57]

On June 27, 2004 the New York Times editorial board criticized the ceremony and the participation of congressional members.[58] The Associated Press reported that "Many of the congressional members in attendance have said they felt misled into making an appearance that later was used to promote Moon's Unification Church."[59] Some stated that they didn't expect a coronation but thought the awards dinner was only to honor activists from their home states as Ambassadors for Peace.[60]

120-city world speaking tour

On September 12, 2005, at the age of 85, Moon inaugurated the Universal Peace Federation with a 120-city world speaking tour.[61] At each city, Moon delivered his speech titled "God's Ideal Family - the Model for World Peace".

Successor

In April 2008, Moon appointed his youngest son Hyung Jin Moon to be the new leader of the Unification Church and the worldwide Unification Movement, saying, "I hope everyone helps him so that he may fulfill his duty as the successor of the True Parents."[62]

A little before dawn one day last April, a chauffeur-driven Mercedes sedan entered the grounds of an estate in Tarrytown, New York, and stopped in front of a brick carriage house that had been converted into a meeting room. An elderly passenger in a business suit got out of the car and, with his wife a few steps behind him, walked inside, where some hundred and fifty people were singing hymns. The singing stopped when the couple entered and made their way through the room. The worshippers shuffled aside, bowing their heads. Once the man and his wife were seated, everyone bowed again, this time dropping to their knees and touching their foreheads to the floor.

There are, certainly, differing degrees of devotion among Moon's followers; the fact that they bow at the right moment or shout "Mansei!" in unison doesn't mean they believe everything Moon says, or do precisely what he commands. Even on important issues, like Moon's claiming to be the messiah, there are church members whom I met, including a close aide to Moon, who demur. A religious leader whom they respect and whose theology they believe, yes; the messiah, perhaps not.[72]

Abuse of money

Critics contrast Moon's "opulent" personal lifestyle with that of church members who are asked to sacrifice both in their careers and in donating most of what little they have.[73] The Moon family situation is described as one of "luxury and privilege"[74] and as "lavish".[75]

Home for the True Family was a guarded 18-acre (73,000 m2) mini-castle in Irvington, New York, a tiny suburb located along a sweep of the Hudson River. Named East Garden, after Eden, the estate included two smaller houses and a three-story brick mansion with 12 bedrooms, seven baths, a bowling alley, and a dining room equipped with a waterfall and pond. There were other castles and mansions too — in South Korea, Germany, Scotland, England — and few expenses were spared. The children had tutors from Japan, purebred horses, motorbikes, sports cars, and first-class vacations with blank-check spending. "The kids got whatever they wanted," says Donna Collins, who grew up in the church. "At one point, the Moon kids were each getting $40,000 or $50,000 a month for allowance. They had wads of cash. I remember once in London where [one of Justin’s sisters] spent like $2,000 a day; I saw a drawer filled with Rolexes and diamonds."[74]

In a 1992 letter to The New York Times, author Richard Quebedeaux, who had taken part in several Unification Church projects, criticized Moon's financial judgement by saying, "Mr. Moon may well be a good religious leader with high ideals, but he has also shown himself to be a poor businessman."[78]

Theocracy

In 1994 the New York Times reported that, "outside investigators and onetime insiders … give a picture of a theocratic powerhouse that is pouring foreign fortunes into conservative causes in the United States."[79] In 2004 the Times criticized Moon's coronation in Washington DC, which was attended by several United States elected officals, as a possible violation of the principle of separation of church and state.[80]

Church role in munitions manufacturing

Church-related businesses engaged in munitions manufacturing in South Korea during the 1960s, as reported by the Fraser Committee a United States Congressional committee which investigated the Unification Church and its relationship with the government of South Korea in 1978. According to the same report, Unification Church owned Tongil Group, then South Korea's 35th largest industrial conglomerate[81], which was involved in weapons manufacture and "is an important defense contractor in Korea. It is involved in the production of M-16 rifles, antiaircraft guns, and other weapons." In fact, as South Korea is technically still at war with North Korea, all large manufacturers are required by law to accept military contracts, as Tongil Group was obligated to do under mandatory South Korean law.

According to the Washington Post, "Some former members and gun industry critics perceive a contradiction between the church's teachings and its corporate involvement in marketing weapons promoted for their concealability and lethality."[84]

Comments on homosexuality

In 1997 gay rights advocates criticized Moon based on comments he made in a speech to church members, in which he said: "What is the meaning of lesbians and homosexuals? That is the place where all different kinds of dung collect. We have to end that behavior. When this kind of dirty relationship is taking place between human beings, God cannot be happy," and referred to gay people as "dung-eating dogs."[85][86] He also said in 2007 that "free sex and homosexuality both are the madness of the lowest of the human race," and that God detests such behavior, while Satan lauds it.[87]

Jews and the Holocaust

Other controversies arose over Moon's statements about the Holocaust being (in part) "indemnity" (restitution) paid by the Jews, a consequence of Jewish leaders not supporting Jesus, which contributed to his murder by the Roman government.[88][89]

Allegations of sex rituals

In the early years of the Unification Church in South Korea, opponents of the church made unproven claims that Moon led his congregation as a sex cult. The church has vehemently rejected the claims, and a former member, South Korean pastor Sa Hun Shim, was convicted of criminal libel for publishing the allegation, in 1989, when a Seoul court held that this persistent rumor was without basis.[90]

In 1955, Moon himself had been arrested and acquitted of charges that the church calls fabricated.[91] And in 1960, in what Moon calls the "climax of persecution,"[92] fourteen students and two professors were dismissed from Ehwa Women's University in Seoul on the grounds that their participation in the faith was immoral.[93]

Rumors of polyamory made it into early U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency and FBI reports monitoring the church. The intelligence cables claimed Moon conducted sex rituals among six married female disciples (the "Six Marys") to prepare the way for the virgin who would marry Moon and become the "True Mother." Conservative journalist Carlton Sherwood has argued that the claims were invented by Christian missionaries. An FBI field report alleged that Moon's rites involved "having a nude women in a darkened room with MUN[sic] while he recited a long prayer and caressed their bodies. . . . At these meetings, MUN prepared special food and drink, and gathered his nude congregation into a darkened room where they all prayed for twenty-four hours."[94]

In 1993, an early disciple of Moon, Chung Hwa Pak, in his book "Tragedy of the Six Marys," released in Japan as "Roku Maria no Higeki", charged that Moon practiced during the church's early years sex rituals with, among others, six married female disciples ("the six Marys"). Pak subsequently rejoined the church and recanted, publishing a 1995 confession, "The Apostate," in which he said he had lied about Moon out of jealousy.[95][96]Nansook Hong, Moon's estranged daughter-in-law, has said that she believes the sex claims are true, writing: "I've always wondered what the price was of that retraction."[97]

^ "Literally nine hundred million to one billion dollars has been spent to activate and run the Washington Times" -Sun Myung Moon, "True Family and True Universe centering on True Love", Founder's Address, 15th Anniversary of The Washington Times, June 16, 1997, Washington, DC.

^ "As of this year, Moon and his businesses have plowed about $1.7 billion into subsidizing the Times, say current and former employees." "Moon Speech Raises Old Ghosts as the Times Turns 20", by Frank Ahrens, Washington Post, May 23, 2002.

^ In a review of the book, Marcia Rudin writes that due to Nansook Hong's position within the Moon family, her story cannot simply be dismissed by cult apologists as an atrocity tale. Rudin went on to state that: "The compelling credibility of this book demands that Nansook's story be paid attention to. Many Unification Church members are paying it attention, for, according to Nansook and others, the first-hand testimony delivered through this book has already caused many Unification Church members to leave the group."Book Review, Marcia Rudin, Cultic Studies Journal, Volume 16, Number 1, 1999.

^ These criticisms have been repeated hundreds of times in media reports. One such example is "Cults, Deprogrammers, and the Necessity Defense", Michigan Law Review, Vol. 80, No. 2 (Dec., 1981), pp. 271-311

^ "I see an irony, if not hypocrisy, that someone who professes peace and says he's completing Jesus's work also manufactures for profit an implement with no purpose other than killing people," said Tom Diaz, author of "Making a Killing," a new book critical of the firearms industry. "What's the message, turn the other cheek, or lock and load?" Church's Pistol Firm Exploits a Niche, By John Mintz, Washington Post Staff Writer; Wednesday, March 10, 1999; Page A1

^ "Stephen, for example, burned with indignation over the ignorance and disbelief of the Jewish leaders, and he condemned their actions, calling them murderers and rebels (Acts 7:51-53). Christians since then have commonly shared the same feelings as the disciples of Jesus' day. If Jesus' death had been the foreordained outcome for the fulfillment of God's Will, then it might have been natural for the disciples to grieve over his death, but they would not have been so bitterly resentful over it, nor so angry at those Jewish leaders who caused it." Exposition of the Divine Principle, HSA-UWC, 1996 (ISBN 0-910621-80-2).

^ Moon said: "By killing one man, Jesus, the Jewish people had to suffer for 2000 years. Countless numbers of people have been slaughtered. During the Second World War, 6 million people were slaughtered to cleanse all the sins of the Jewish people from the time of Jesus." MASTER SPEAKS (no official translation was done), 2/14/74

^From the Unification Church to the Unification Movement, 1994-1999: Five Years of Dramatic Changes by Massimo Introvigne, Center for Studies on New Religions (CESNUR). An expanded version of this paper is part of Massimo Introvigne’s book The Unification Church, published in the series "Studies in Contemporary Religion" by Signature Books. "The Hong book also revived earlier controversies associated with the late Chung Hwa Pak, one of Rev. Moon's first disciples, who had caused considerable controversy by confirming accusations of sexual immorality in the Rev. Moon’s early career in a text widely circulated by critics (and later published in Japanese) called The Tragedy of the Six Marys. Park, who had left the Unification Church, claimed that Rev. Moon practiced during the church's early years sex rituals with, among others, six married female disciples ("the six Marys") who were to have prepared the way for the virgin who would marry him and become the True Mother. The church vehemently denied the allegations, and was able to rely on earlier Korean court rulings where critics who made similar accusations had been found guilty of defamation and libel. Park eventually returned to the fold and, shortly before dying, recanted all the accusations in a second text he authored in 1995, called The Apostate."

^ A speech made by Pak titled "Retraction of The Tragedy of the Six Marys" can be found at www.tparents.org.

^ In the Shadow of the Moons: My Life in the Reverend Sun Myung Moon's Family, p27

From Wikiquote

Sun Myung Moon was born 1920-01-06 in the village of Sangsa-ri in
what is now North Korea. He is the founder of the Unification
Church, a new religious movement. He is called "Father" or
"True Father" by church members.

Although today the Unification Church is being persecuted, I am
grateful for it. If we did not receive opposition, where would the
Unification Church be diverted to? Even when constructing a
building, one must dig deep and lay down concrete. If one digs
shallow and puts in the concrete, one cannot build a strong
building. Because Jesus understood this situation, he could join
his hands and pray for the sake of Satan.

The words of the Bible that you believe in today are the
words of a betrayed Jesus. The apostles betrayed not only Jesus but
also his words. His words were betrayed and Jesus was also
personally betrayed. Did Heaven labor for four thousand years to
establish Jesus just so he might be betrayed? No, not at all. Why
do you believe in Jesus? You must believe in Jesus in order to
fulfill the hope of God and to ease
the pain of Jesus. Without caring whether you go to Heaven or hell
and even if you go to hell, you
should fulfill Jesus' hope. Even if you become the prince of hell,
you should believe in order to fulfill God's hope. But people say,
"Even if Jesus perishes and Heaven fails, all that needs to happen
is that I go to the Kingdom of Heaven." This attitude is worse than
criminal. This kind of faith is faulty in essence. Today the road
of the Unification Church members is the road of setting this kind
of Christianity
straight.

Where did you set your standard of faith? Do you desire the greatest blessing? I
know you do. Are you willing to take up the cross? Do you know what
Jesus said? He said, "He who loves his mother, his father, his
wife, his brothers and sisters, his children more than me is not
worthy of me. To come with me, you must bear your own cross." Jesus
Christ, of course, was a pathfinder. He opened
up the territory, the new way. In order to be adopted as a true son
and daughter of God, those who followed his path must walk the same
way. The time has come when the tears of civilized people are
necessary. The tears of the millionaire are needed, The tears of
the men of talent, the men of knowledge are needed. And their
sweat. And even their blood. This is the only way we can expedite
the restoration of the Kingdom of Heaven.

Since God has been carrying on His dispensation through the
Christian church, He and we are responsible to convey this message
to the Christians first. Until our mission with the Christian
church is over, we must quote the Bible and use it to explain the
Divine Principle. After we receive
the inheritance of the Christian church, we will be free to teach
without the Bible. Now, however, our primary mission is to witness
to the Christian church. When they recognize and accept our
movement, the world restoration will be very easy. So go to the
Christians. In reality, Christians are quicker to understand the
Principle than non-Christians. Sometimes non-Christians may accept
it quickly, but it is hard to put the roots into deep soil. They
accept for a few days, then run away.

There have been a number of instances in the Bible where the
Spirit of God has acted in a birth. For instance, in the story of
Abraham and Sarah, Sarah was too old and Abraham was also old. But
the Bible says God quickened the womb of Sarah so that she could
bear a son. In the same way, the Holy Spirit worked with
Mary. It was not done in the sense of producing a child from the
union of God with man, but in the sense of God participating in the
event. Jesus was born of a father and a mother, just as anyone else
is, but in his case the Spirit of God was working also.

To satisfy your curiosity, I can explain very plainly. But
since Christians believe that Jesus was born of a virgin by the
Holy Spirit, and God's primary object of this dispensation is
Christians (it is His will that we lead Christians first because
they are the ones who have been keeping the promise of the Second Coming), it is our
mission to tell them first, whether they refuse or accept. If I
explain everything plainly about the birth of Jesus, it may put a
stumbling block in the way of many Christians accepting God's new
dispensation. Therefore, I don't want to explain everything too
plainly here.

After 7,000 biblical years — 6,000 years of restoration history
plus the millennium, the time of completion — communism will fall in its 70th year. Here is
the meaning of the year 1978. Communism, begun in 1917, could
maintain itself approximately 60 years and reach its peak. So 1978
is the border line and afterward communism will decline; in the
70th year it will be altogether ruined. This is true. Therefore,
now is the time for people who are studying communism to abandon
it.

In the providential history of mankind, Adam fell
on the individual level; Noah fell on the family level; Abraham on
the tribal level (clan level); Moses, on the national level; and
Jesus, both on the national and worldwide levels. All those things
are not a history of victory at all. But when we think of centering
on the man Noah -- he kept his faith, trying to carry out his
mission for 120 long years -- but we have to excel his faith.
Abraham was the father of faith, Moses was a man of faith, Jesus
was the son of man, trying to carry out his mission at the cost of
his life. But they are, in a way, failures. So, in order for us to
accomplish our mission, our whole-sided mission, we must excel them
in many ways. It makes it difficult for us to carry out our
mission; but when we pour out our whole energy, our whole being,
into this providence project, we can get the cooperation of the
spirit world, making it possible. We must turn all things upside
down like this, making it a reality, and making it a success. Jesus
had a strong sense of purpose in his mission, but ours must be even
stronger than that.

My dream is to organize a Christian political party including
the Protestant denominations, Catholics and all the religious
sects. Then, the communist power will be helpless before ours. We
are going to do this because the communists are coming to the
political scene. Before the pulpit, all the ministers of the
established churches must give their sermon on how to smash or
absorb communism — but they are not doing that. We are going to do
this. Unless we lay the foundation for this, we cannot carry it
out. In the Medieval Ages, they had to separate from the cities —
statesmanship from the religious field — because people were
corrupted at that time. But when it comes to our age, we must have
an automatic theocracy
to rule the world. So, we cannot separate the political field from
the religious. Democracy
was born because people ruled the world, like the Pope does. Then,
we come to the conclusion that God has to rule the world, and God
loving people have to rule the world — and that is logical. We have
to purge the corrupted politicians, and the sons of God must rule
the world. The separation between religion and politics is what
Satan likes most.

Are you better than Jesus? You must be better than him. Yes,
you must be confident that you can do better things and you can be
better than Jesus, because Jesus died and could save the world only
on the spiritual level. But you are going to save the world both on
the spiritual level and physical level. You must be confident that
you are better than Jesus. The whole world is in my hand, and I
will conquer and subjugate the world. I will go beyond the boundary
of the U. S., opening up the toll gate, reaching out to the end of
the world. I will go forward, piercing through everything. Are you
with that attitude? With that zeal and courage? Are you not scared?
You must be with strength here. Unless you are like that, you
cannot go over or win in the judgment of personality.

The time will come, without my seeking it, that my words will
almost serve as law. If I ask a certain thing, it will be done. If
I don't want something, it will not be done. If I recommend a
certain ambassador for a certain country, and then visit that
country and that ambassador's office, he will greet me with the red
carpet treatment.

We have had enough of white presidents. So, let's this time
elect a president from the Negro race. What will you do if I say
so? There's no question there. We must never forget that we are
brothers and sisters in a huge human family. In any level of
community, we must become like a family. Even in the Israelite
nation, there were Negro people. God has mixed whites, yellow, and
blacks all over the world, but especially in the United States. If
you go to Israel, you will see many black people there, and you
would perhaps ask them, "Are you an Israelite, too?" And he would
say "Yes." Maybe in his ancestry, one of the Israelites married an
African Negro. I don't know, but they are Israelites by lineage.
Most of the people in Israel have black hair, but I very often
found blonde hair. Then I would ask them, "Are you an Israelite,
too?" And he would say "Yes." I imagine that in his ancestral line,
one Israelite woman married a white man. Still, he's an Israelite.

Father thinks about the three races, yellow, black, and white.
Orientals can contribute in the spiritual aspect, white people can
contribute in the analytical, scientific area, while black people
can contribute in the physical area-physical educational
development of physical fitness, the area of health. That's one of
the reasons Glenda Moody's project with black young people is very
fantastic. From now on, two thirds of the athletes may come from
black people. Even basketball teams have a dominant population of
black people. The talented area of black people is in this physical
aspect. So, the short cut for black peoples' achievement in this
world is the physical area. So, Father has a special concern in
this area.

Modern war has occurred primarily in the Western culture.
Western culture is short-tempered in a sense, always resorting to
showdowns with weapons. It originated in the cold North with
hunters who killed to eat and then moved on. The tradition of
Vikings and pirates is strong in Western culture, and when Western
culture moves into a new territory it is accompanied by rifles and
guns. You don't like to hear this because you are Westerners, but
someone must wake you up.

If there is anything so precious that without it history and
the world will be destroyed, where will you keep it? You will
naturally want to keep it in the deepest part of your mind. If you
desire to place it in the depths of your mind, it needs to be
invisible. It is for this very reason that God exists as an
invisible being. It is fortunate that He is invisible, for if He
were visible how could a great contest to gain Him be avoided? It
would be difficult for God to endure the pain of seeing it.

Until this day the history of restoration has been the course
of being beaten and recovering. Thus, history has been made by
those who were beaten and persecuted. Go where people hate to be,
and where people cry sorrowfully from the depths of their hearts.
There lies the bone marrow of history.

Up until today evil has lured goodness into evil, but goodness
has not been able to lure evil into goodness. This may be the
reason why up to today Christianity has not been able to boldly
fulfill the Will of God.

You should be a person who can establish the Heavenly Kingdom
rather than just the one who can go there. Those who can go to
heaven are those who wish to be dependent on God, but those capable
of building the Kingdom are those who can let God depend on them.

Absolute faith is not the place of self-affirmation, but the
place of self-negation. Life of faith is not limited to our
spiritual life. What is important is how our spiritual sensitivity
is applied to our relative environment.

If you convey God's words to someone only with the intention to
utilize him in some way, you will never be able to establish the
standard of the "Way." Give what you have to others with your
sincere heart.

I would not be standing here today if my skin were white or my
religion were Presbyterian. I am here today only
because my skin is yellow and my religion is Unification Church.
The ugliest things in this beautiful country of America are
religious bigotry and racism.

Those who are the most devout, outstanding Unification Church
members are they the most beautiful people externally or just
so-so? Very often, those who have the features of an Idaho potato
are the most loyal members of the Unification Church.

Only because of the striving nature of men has mankind achieved
what it has so far. Men are made that way; they are designed to
reach out for things which they cannot see with their eyes but can
only imagine. A man naturally seeks after his dream, his ideal,
while women are more concerned with the here and now rather than
the future, intangible realm.

The original language of the Divine Principle is Korean, so if
you want to become a true authority on the subject you must learn
Korean. What if, when you go to the Kingdom of Heaven. the only
language is Korean? You would be in deep trouble! Later on. when
the Unification Church becomes larger, the official language of our
church will be Korean. All official conferences and meetings will
be conducted in Korean.

When Jesus said, "The Kingdom of Heaven is within you," it was
the mind that he was speaking about. The Kingdom of Heaven must
begin within a mind which exists for the sake of the whole. Such a
mind is so broad that the entire universe can be embraced by it;
the whole Kingdom, including all of mankind, can come within that
mind. In that case, who should be the center of your mind — the
nation, the world, or God? Yes, it should be God. If your mind is
embracing everything, that means you are trying to capture or
embrace the mind of God.

This country desperately needs a God-centered president,
senators and congressmen. America's intellectual establishment is
liberal, godless, secular, humanistic, and anti-religious. We are
declaring war against three main enemies: godless communism,
Christ-less American liberalism, and secular-humanistic morality.
They are the enemies of God, the True Parents, the Unification
Church, all of Christianity, and all religions. We are working to
mobilize a united front against them.

100,000 soldiers are reported to have died in the Iraqi war. If
you count 100 relatives of each soldier, it means that practically
there are millions of people who now have antagonism toward the
white people of America. These Arab people will remember this
country whose main religion is Christianity, who came and destroyed
all Iraqi facilities and industry. They won't easily forget this.

Who hated Reverend Moon more, Christians or Jews? There is no
doubt that the communists are on Satan's side, but even the
religious people are now on Satan's side. The Jews and the
Christians came against me and God. Clearly, the 2,000 years of
suffering which Christians went through took them to a high and
powerful position. But why, in a mere 40 years, have they plummeted
down and been reduced to complete powerlessness? It is because they
came against Reverend Moon. We look at gorgeous churches and
synagogues, but now they are only 10% to 15% filled. Those who are
there are old; pretty soon they will go to the grave. Then there
will be no one. This is true for all religions.

God cannot avoid working to separate good from evil and thus
reverse this situation. God is public-minded and continues on the
path of living for the whole and going toward the goal of love and
peace. On the other hand, Satan is selfish and individualistic.
Satan is always trying to destroy the good side through hate, evil
and war. His intent is to prevent earth from returning eternally to
God's side.

The time is coming that we have to abolish the concept of
separation between church and state. We need a political party
centered upon religious ideology. The world of democracy is based
upon the ideology of brotherhood. That is why Cain and Abel
struggle exists there. Changes of power always head towards the
satanic side. This democratic period in human history is passing
away. Soon the heavenly sovereignty will be established to lead the
world.

Where do you want to live? When you reach your fifties and
sixties and you retire, if you remain in the city you will become
suffocated. Eventually you will have to travel to the ideal village
which we have established and spend the rest of your life with
nature and contribute as much as possible. Breathe and mingle with
nature. Then end your life with nature and go and join God in the
spiritual world. That will become the course of your life.

Charles
Darwin's evolution
theory states that the strong eat the weak. According to Darwin's
evolution theory we are the worst people. But it is actually not
so. It is a natural universal law. If we take Darwin's evolution
theory literally then God is the worst kind of being. Because God
planned creation in a certain way. When love is involved there is
no evil. Even mother birds sacrifice their own lives for the sake
of their babies.

Jesus Christ is trying to follow me, my footsteps, all the way.
He stayed in Paradise, because he did not marry. But I gave him
marriage. Don’t you want to meet the wives of Buddha, Confucius and Muhammad? They sent letters
of gratitude to me from spirit world. They pledge that even if
their religion disappears, they will follow me. Can you imagine
anyone in this world claiming to have married those past saints?
The rings I prepared for their marriage cost a great deal per
couple. Did I do that because I am crazy?

That should be your determination. As a man, in your right
front pants pocket is a small inside watch pocket. Keep pliers
there, and when you go to the bathroom, once a day, pinch your love
organ. Cut the skin a little bit as a warning. If your love organ
does not listen to your conscience, then you should cut off the
tip. Even if it takes that extreme measure, we have to make sure
our mind and body become one.

That's why I can dream dreams that God Himself never dreamed.
I'm that kind of person. I can believe the things even God can't
believe. I can do things even God can't. That's why God hated me
more than Satan hated me.

The five great saints and many other leaders in the spirit
world, including even Communist leaders such as Marx and Lenin, who
committed all manner of barbarity and murders on earth, and
dictators such as Hitler and Stalin, have found
strength in my teachings, mended their ways and been reborn as new
persons. Emperors, kings and presidents who enjoyed opulence and
power on earth, and even journalists who had worldwide fame, have
now placed themselves at the forefront of the column of the true
love revolution. Together they have sent to earth a resolution
expressing their determination in the light of my teaching of the
true family ideal. They have declared to all Heaven and Earth that
Reverend Sun Myung Moon is none other than humanity's Savior,
Messiah, Returning Lord and True Parent. This resolution has been
announced on every corner of the globe.

There is no doubt that this kingdom is one that the children of
God's direct lineage can reign over by upholding the heavenly
decree. In other words, it is a nation in which they rule on behalf
of God's commands and kingship. Democracy and communism cannot
exist in such a kingdom. Once established, it will remain as an
eternal state system. Considering these things, isn't it mortifying
that you have not yet become the citizens of that kingdom?

Beloved guests, in what form does God, the Creator of all
things in the universe, exist? God exists as the dual
characteristics of a subject partner in the male position and
object partner in the female position. God created Adam and Eve,
the first human ancestors, by dividing the male and female
positions within Himself. The children of Adam and Eve were to have
been created in the same pattern of male and female as a result of
the union formed by Adam and Eve.

Furthermore, the best way to restore humanity to the position
of the children of God through conversion of lineage is through the
inter-cultural “exchange” marriage blessing. It is the greatest of
moral acts, creating the Heavenly lineage on a whole new level,
transcending the walls of race, culture, nationality and religion.
It is an act that severs all links of enmity. It is the sacred rite
of the conversion of lineage, through which all can be re-created
through the True Parents, the King and Queen of Peace, the
substantial manifestations of God who enable Him to exercise His
providence in the present world.

As citizens of Cheon Il Guk, please have the wisdom to protect
and love nature. Return to nature and enjoy a life of liberation
and complete freedom. To love nature is to love God and humanity.
When human life resonates with nature, human character can blossom
in perfection. The flowers of a true culture of heart, a true
artistic world, will bloom. It will be the Garden of Eden, the
original ideal where human beings and all creation live in complete
harmony and express their original nature.

Japanese leaders aren't you teaching a principle that I do not
teach, when you say, "I am Abel because I am a church leader. You
are Cain. Cain obeys Abel. This is the Principle. So obey." There
is no such principle. The person who does not fulfill his mission
and become the embodiment of love is not Abel.

Satan tried to control the world with power but created hell.
That power cannot create the ideal world. God has to create the
Kingdom of Heaven on Earth by true love, even to liberate hell.
Based on true love, not politics or economy, scholars can change
their concepts. So far, scholars have supported political
authority, but that must change. Economy has supported the reigning
political power, which makes for division. Now unity will come by
parental love.

Translation
disputed

*Note that the phrase "automatic theocracy" is seen within
the church as a translation error. Mrs. w:Won Pok Choi, while translating the
extemporaneous speech, compressed several minutes of Rev. Moon's
exposition about the process by which the world would
become transformed into the kingdom of heaven into this
two-word phrase. Critics used to use this quote to "prove" their
claim that Rev. Moon was dictatorial and anti-democratic, but w:Andrew Wilson had the recorded speech
re-translated and exposed the discrepancy. Here is the
word-for-word re-translation:

(as re-translated) "What? Separate religion from politics? Why
separate religion from politics? Why separate politics from
religion? Can you separate God from politics? God is active in the
realization of all human affairs. Therefore, when the democracies
produce a succession of many uncorrupted politicians, it will
become heaven on earth. Don't you agree that this is the way it
should be?"

(original translation) "But when it comes to our age, we must
have an automatic theocracy* to rule the world.
So, we cannot separate the political field from the religious."
...and continuing... "Democracy was born because people ruled the
world, like the Pope does. Then, we come to the conclusion that God
has to rule the world, and God loving people have to rule the world
-- and that is logical. We have to purge the corrupted politicians,
and the sons of God must rule the world. The separation between
religion and politics is what Satan likes most."
- Rev. Sun Myung Moon, Third
Directors' Conference, Master Speaks, May 17, 1973

Quotes about
Moon

With the fullness of time, God has sent one person to this
earth to resolve the fundamental problems of human life and the
universe. His name is Sun Myung Moon. For several decades he
wandered through the spirit world so vast as to be beyond
imagining. He trod a bloody path of suffering in search of the
truth, passing through tribulations that God alone remembers. Since
he understood that no one can find the ultimate truth to save
humanity without first passing through the bitterest of trials, he
fought alone against millions of devils, both in the spiritual and
physical worlds, and triumphed over them all. Through intimate
spiritual communion with God and by meeting with Jesus and many
saints in Paradise, he brought to light all the secrets of Heaven.

It’s frightening what these Moonies can do to the family
unit..I get letters from parents all over the country telling me
the same story..The kids are swept along by his outfit and then
taken away for a few days to a ‘workshop.’ By the time the parents
see their kids again – if they can manage to see them – the kids
are starry-eyed and ready to take on anyone who disagrees with
them. It’s a form of hypnotism. There is something very unhealthy
going on.

Rabbi Maurice
Davis, United States Congressional Record, 94th
Congress, United States House of Representatives, 2nd session,
(1976-01-28), Congressional Record, Volume
122, Part 2.

The Rev. Moon has a very good sense of humor. It's hard for me
to think of a person as being mean or brainwashing people with the
sense of humor he has. He truly loves people. I mean, he likes
being with them. He likes being kidded-he likes being teased. I
never saw a mean act on his part. He never asked for special
treatment. He mopped floors and cleaned tables, and he helped other
people when he was finished with his job.

Like most Americans, Wineburg had been unaware of the power
Moon holds in our nation's politics. The reverend, who once served
eleven months in prison for income tax fraud, is best known for
marrying thousands of strangers in mass weddings. Those events
earned him a public reputation as a spectacle-mad eccentric, but
that obscures his role as a significant D.C. power broker. In fact,
Moon is an important patron of the Republican party and of the
conservative movement. Through his various front groups he's been a
major proponent and minor recipient of Bush's faith-based funding."

We accused a newcomer to our shores of criminal and intentional
wrongdoing for conduct commonly engaged in by a large percentage of
our own religious leaders, namely, the holding of church funds in
bank accounts in their own names. Catholic priests do it. Baptist
ministers do it, and so did Sun Myung Moon.
No matter how we view it, it remains a fact that we charged a
non-English-speaking alien with criminal tax evasion on the first
tax returns he filed in this country. It appears that we didn't
give him a fair chance to understand our laws. We didn't seek a
civil penalty as an initial means of redress. We didn't give him
the benefit of any doubt. Rather, we took a novel theory of tax
liability of less than $10,000 and turned it into a guilty verdict
and eighteen months in a federal prison.
I do feel strongly, after my subcommittee has carefully and
objectively reviewed this case from both sides, that injustice
rather than justice has been served. The Moon case sends a strong
signal that if one's views are unpopular enough, this country will
find a way not to tolerate, but to convict. I don't believe that
you or I or anyone else, no matter how innocent, could
realistically prevail against the combined forces of our Justice
Department and judicial branch in a case such as Reverend Moon's.

The Reverend Moon is a fundamentalist with a vengeance. He has
a belief system that admits of no boundaries or limits, an
all-embracing truth. His writings exhibit a holistic concern for
the person, society, nature, and all things embraced by the human
vision. In this sense the concept underwriting the Unification
church is apt, for its primary drive and appeal is unity, urging a
paradigm of essence in an overly complicated world of existence. It
is a ready-made doctrine for impatient young people and all those
for whom the pursuit of the complex has become a tiresome and
fruitless venture.

Father was moved to Hung Nam which was quite far from
Pyongyang, together with that Mr. Kim. Father was taken to the
police station on February 22nd, 1948 and was sentenced to five
years' imprisonment at the trial of April 7th. He moved to Hung Nam
on May 20th. He found there that many prisoners were dying because
of the poor food. The hard, forced labor raised the death rate.
Father felt that he would not be able to survive for five years
when he saw the contents of the meals. Father knew that Heavenly
Father had worked on the Providence for 6,000 years, looking for
one person: Father. (Father always thought of what would happen to
Heavenly Father, who had worked His Providence for 6,000 years, if
Father died.) You can imagine how difficult the mission of the
Messiah is if I tell you this story. Father himself knew more than
anyone else the difficulty of the Messiah's mission. Once he
wondered whether he could transfer the mission to anybody else or
not. If he could have transferred it, he himself might have found
things easier, but that person would have had to walk the difficult
way that Father was walking. So he changed his mind again and
decided that he would like to bear the cross, rather than make
someone else go this difficult course.

There are, certainly, differing degrees of devotion among
Moon's followers; the fact that they bow at the right moment or
shout "Mansei!" in unison doesn't mean they believe everything Moon
says, or do precisely what he commands. Even on important issues,
like Moon's claiming to be the messiah, there are church members
whom I met, including a close aide to Moon, who demur. A religious
leader whom they respect and whose theology they believe, yes; the
messiah, perhaps not.

Rev. and Mrs. Moon boldly entered Moscow in April 1990 and had
a one-on-one meeting in the Kremlin with Soviet President Mikhail
Gorbachev. This was another miracle to have occurred. Rev. Moon
conveyed his support to Gorbachev of his policies of glasnost and
perestroika. I was there to translate that extraordinary meeting.
Rev. Moon persuaded Gorbachev to allow religious freedom, to allow
God to enter the Soviet Union. In my opinion, this meeting was
crucially important in the sight of God. It was, in a way, the
beginning of a peaceful process of the demise of the Soviet empire.
Rev. Moon indeed motivated Gorbachev in the direction of peaceful
reform. The greatest miracle that occurred in this century was the
liberation of the Soviet Union without nuclear war. The threat of
nuclear war was the single greatest concern of Rev. Moon. He said,
"Thank God, not a single nuclear weapon was used against mankind
since 1945." Clearly, it was God who dismantled the Evil Empire.

Over the past quarter century, South Korean theocrat Sun Myung
Moon has been one of the Bush family’s major benefactors – both
politically and financially – while enjoying what appears to be
protection against federal investigations into evidence that his
cult-like organization has functioned as a criminal enterprise.

In Japan and Korea, "No. 1" is most often shielded from bad
news by his subordinates, and lied to by those under him. It took a
long time for Mr. Moon (or anyone else) to find out the full extent
of the losses incurred by the Unification Church in Japan. He knows
now, but continues to plan and make financial commitments on faith
-- to Kim Il Sung of North Korea, among others. Mr. Moon may well
be a good religious leader with high ideals, but he has also shown
himself to be a poor businessman.

I especially appreciated Rev. Moon’s commitment to the fight
against Communism. From his own first-hand, personal experience and
out of his religious convictions, he understood how tragic a
political and social blight that movement had been. I had been in
East and West Berlin the week the Berlin Wall was erected in August
1961 and had visited communist Poland in 1965. Unfortunately, many
of my liberal academic colleagues did not understand the full
nature of the threat as did Rev. Moon. I was impressed with the
sophistication of Rev. Moon’s anti-communism. He understood
communism’s evil, but he also stood ready to meet with communist
leaders such as Mikhail Gorbachev and Kim Il Sung in the hope of
changing or moderating their views.

Mr. Speaker, the activities of the Rev. Sun Myung Moon's
Unification Church continue to cause distress for many of us. As
you know, the House Subcommittee on International Organizations,
chaired by my distinguished colleague, Donald Fraser, is
investigating allegations of close ties between the Reverend Moon
and some of his organizations and the South Korean government,
including the KCIA. As a member of the subcommittee, I am, of
course, disturbed over such allegations. My greatest concern,
however, is for those young people who have been converted by these
religious cults and for their parents, who have suffered the loss
of their children. One of these parents, Mrs. Ida Watson Camburn of
Sunnyvale, Calif., brought to my attention the testimony of John G.
Clark, Jr., M.D., assistant professor of psychiatry at the Harvard
Medical School, before a Vermont Senate committee, which was
investigating religious cults. Dr. Clark's remarks, based on 2 ½
years of research, deal with the effects of some religious cults on
the mental and physical health and welfare of their converts. I
highly recommend his conclusions to my colleagues.

Why trust Rev. Moon's dreams and visions of the new age and his
role in it, we ask? Most converts actually have had minimal contact
with him. Frederick Sontag (Sun Myung Moon and the Unification
Church, Abingdon, 1977) in his interviews with Moon appears to have
found a pleasant but not an overwhelming personality. Charisma, as
traditionally understood, seems hardly applicable here. Rather,
Moon provides a model. He suffered valiantly, he knows confidently,
he prays assuredly, he lives lovingly, say his followers. The
Divine Principle is not an unrealizable ideal; it is incarnate in a
man, it lives, it is imitable. His truth is experienced to be their
truth. His explanation of the universe becomes their understanding
of themselves and the world in which they live.

The Unification Church, its leaders and followers were and
continue to be the victims of the worst kind of religious prejudice
and racial bigotry this country has witnessed in over a century.
Moreover, virtually every institution we as Americans hold sacred
the Congress, the courts, law enforcement agencies, the press, even
the U.S. Constitution itself was prostituted in a malicious,
oftentimes brutal manner, as part of a determined effort to wipe
out this small but expanding religious movement.

With the Cold War's conclusion, a rush began amongst scholars,
analysts, and pundits to identify the key personalities and factors
that contributed to the Soviet Empire's collapse. Competing
theories abounded, with key roles being assigned to Ronald Reagan,
John Paul II, Mikhail Gorbachev, Norman Podhoretz, Alexander
Solzhenitzyn and Sidney Hook, as well as to freedom fighters,
refuseniks and populist movements such as Solidarity. In their
interpretation of various events, some scholars opted to
depersonalize the process, crediting the fall of the Soviet Union
to phenomena such as evolving patterns of economic development and
the information revolution. Among the contributions to the
postmortem literature is Richard Gid Powers' Not Without Honor
(1995), which professed to be "The History of American
Anticommunism." Powers' 554-page opus of names and organizations
omits all of the American entities associated with Reverend Moon,
and denies them any role in rolling back communism in the 1970s and
80s. In the 672 pages of On the Brink: The Dramatic Behind the
Scenes Saga of the Reagan Era and the Men and Women who Won the
Cold War (1996), Jay Winik records a brief mention of one
Moon-related organization, The Washington Times, but only in noting
its early reporting on the unfolding story of Iran Contra. Accounts
by Brian Crozier, Adam Ulam, Bob Woodward, and Jack Matlock, US
Ambassador to the Soviet Union under President Reagan, also make no
mention of Moon's efforts. Intentionally or not, Reverend Moon has
been expunged from the record in spite of the adverse, critical
coverage his activities received in the mainstream and alternative
media when anticommunism was viewed with disdain.